I ENJOYED reading the Longmoor article by my former colleague Gary Boyd-Hope (RM October), particularly as I visited the premises at least five times during their open days in the 1960s.
I remember one of these occasions vividly as the day turned into quite an adventure after the army team split the points at Longmoor Downs with one of the ‘Austerity’ locos while running round the passenger train. This actually happened on two occasions we were there, not just this once.
Anyhow, the derailment triggered the famous Hants & Sussex bus company into action, which resulted in a unique red-coloured Dennis Pelican prototype single-decker turning up to rescue stranded passengers. It made my day!
We had to call into their deport on the way to the main line station at Liss to fill the bus’s radiator up with water. Do any other readers remember all this, I think it was 1964?
My uncle John Love (83), who travelled with us that day, has come up with a few pictures for me that might interest readers, including one of the derailment (inset).
Peter Love
Bodle Street Green
If READERS are interested, you can still walk along the route for around a mile form Liss station and there are various relics visible, including the Longmoor railway station platform at Liss (pictured right).
A little more than a mile of the course of the LMR has been turned into a footpath, and there are various relics of the railway, and an odd length of track that can still be seen.
New wooden superstructures and fences have been put in across two rivers on the original bridges, and the path ends at Forest Road.
There’s more information at: www.lissconservation.btck.co.uk/LissRiversideRailwayWalk
Stuart Hicks
By email
Read more Letters, Opinion, News and Features in the December 2019 issue of The Railway Magazine – on sale now!
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